Bearing the Burden
by BookHobbit
Summary: Prequest: A young Frodo receives solace from a sympathetic ear. Part of Marigold's Challenge 1. COMPLETE


Bearing the Burden  
  
Author: BookHobbit  
  
Summary: A young Frodo receives solace from a sympathetic ear.  
  
Pairing: None  
  
Rating: G  
  
Category: Drama/angst  
  
Notes/Disclaimer: This takes place about 1383 SR, so Frodo is 15. Melilac is an OC, but he (along with everyone else mentioned in this) are Tolkien's, whose works I admire and whose characters I only borrow, not steal. Feedback is always encouraged. :-)  
  
I went down to the River today.  
  
I know; a momentous occasion. One that should be recorded in the history books for all of posterity to read about and wonder at.  
  
But it is.  
  
I've avoided the River. For three years, I turned my head the other way when I passed it. For three years, I dreaded a ride on the Ferry as if it were a ride on a venomous snake with bared fangs. For three years, I've so much as quailed from the bath.  
  
"Move on," I'm told, again and again and again, in a monotonous flood of false sympathy and pretended smiles. "Everything will be all right in the end. You'll forget about it."  
  
So why haven't I?  
  
'Forget'? How could I possibly, how could I ever forget? How could I forget the way Mum would tuck me in at night, her eyes smiling without her lips moving? How could I forget Da making bedtime stories from his ample store of fantastic imaginings?   
  
How can one forget one's parents?  
  
They don't understand, these people who move their mouths upward in imitation of empathy. These people who have never felt such a deep, slicing pain that stabs, ever and anon, at my heart at the slightest of provocations. They believe this is a phase all teenaged hobbits go through: rebellion against what they know to be right and true. They think I'm behaving like eighteen-year-old Melilac, who has run off to the Old Forest no less than six times this year. They suppose this is a willful act that "will pass, once he realizes he can't get attention in that manner."  
  
Bilbo understands. He knows sometimes, when the pain is too sharp, when the grief too much of a burden, when my knees buckle under the strain of the pretense that nothing is wrong, I just have to let it out. He allows me to scream my frustration and fury at the world without scolding me. He rubs my back as I sob brokenly over what was and what will never again be. He does this without the trite words my other relations use: "It'll be better." It will? How? When? "Don't cry." Why not? What's wrong with feeling? And, of course, "Shhhh." What? I am no longer permitted to make noise in my grief? Oh, yes, I forgot I cannot grieve because I cannot feel.  
  
Bilbo will pat my arm in that familiar way. The way that is not soothing, for how can such a wound be soothed? The way that is not scolding, for Bilbo knows it is right to have emotions. The way that is not so much of a comfort as it is a steady reassurance. "I know your pain. I feel it, too. It's horrible, is it not? Take as long as you wish, Frodo. I don't mind."  
  
Bilbo cannot put all of his memories of my parents into a box, tie it with string, and lock it in a chest to be forgotten or bury it in his garden. "Locks can break, m'lad. Buried things can be uncovered. Best not to forget them to begin with." His advice is what I take to heart, instead of the 'never remember it and it will go away' solution adopted by aunts and uncles who wish to pretend they never existed.  
  
So that is why I went to the River today, dearest Merry. I want to remember, I must remember, but it is so hard sometimes. How could the River make it any easier? Yet it did, in a way. I cannot explain it. I can still weep and rage at the absolute unfairness of it all.  
  
But I don't know why I am telling you, dear lad. You don't distinguish between grieving and storytelling, I suppose, for you continue looking at me with those wide eyes, that expectant look of someone patiently waiting for the conclusion of a tale.  
  
You remind me of Bilbo, you know. You and he are the only two I can confide in. Aunt Esmeralda always becomes sorrowful if I talk to her about it, and I do not want to sadden her. And Uncle Saradoc has enough worries of late, with Master Rory's illness.   
  
Bilbo cries with me and you, you cry when you are hungry or sleepy or any number of things, just like any other baby - unless someone talks to you. So I talk, and you listen, and I can bear this weight another day.  
  
May all his sorrows be short-lived. I wished for that, when you were but a few days old, you know. I wished it for you, and it seems to have come true, for the old aunts say they've never seen such a happy baby. I wish it yet, littlest cousin, for you to never see a gloomy day or a fearful night. I wish it, regardless of pragmatism and hobbit sense which tell me such a desire is in vain, for every creature will be sad. But may you ever fit your name, beloved Merry, as well as you do now in peaceful infant dreams.  
  
Sleep well.  
  
~Finis~ 


End file.
